Dear All!
Today (1st December 1999) is an important day for 3 reasons:

1. It's my mum's birthday! Happy Birthday Mum. 39 (again?!)
2. My bike flew to Addis Ababa/ Ethiopia on Lufthansa flight LH590 yesterday.
3. I fly to Addis on Ethiopian Airlines flight something or other in precisely 15 hours.

I'll try to send more news (and a vaguely balanced view on this dump) when I reach a netcafe in Ethiopia/ Kenya/ Uganda etc. I'm not sure how the connections will be, so it could be a while... Hope everything is good with you all and many thanks for all the positive messages and helpful advice.

At the mo, I only have one bit of advice: Don't try to ship a motor vehicle out of Egypt, or even better don't go to Egypt in the first place.

Hang loose,

Chris

And I thought this would be interesting as well.. (ed. Grant)

Grant,

Thanks for the message. Its good to get news and particularly to hear that there are people out there who care about me. All the locals here, with few exceptions, are the biggest bunch of class a .....

Tthings here are finally moving after all the inertia. the bike went last night to addis ababa/ ethiopia and i go tomorrow morning. 'inshallah'. 600 bucks for the bike with lufthansa and 430 for me with ethiopian airlines (oneway!). an expensive stunt, but a necessary one. What makes everything more annoying is the Sudanese ......... embassy here is issuing visas to everybody except me and 250m yanks and 65m brits. I had applied too, but low and behold, they 'misplaced' my application!

Beware Camel sign, Sinai, Egypt

Egypt is definitely responsible for the depletion of the amazonian rainforest and the hole in the ozone layer. so many people pushing mountains of paperwork and creating so much hot air. There are at least 5 people 'employed' in a task that even a vaguely lucid spotty British teenager could complete in between picking his zits in 10 minutes. it takes them 4 hours to process one piece of paper!!!!

Having adapted my driving style to match the way the locals drive, I shudder to contemplate a return to a country where they actually impliment rudimentary examples of the highway code. things like lane discipline, indicating when changing lane, driving with lights at night or even driving the correct way down a street are alien concepts here. The other day I had to go to the traffic police to get a piece of paper confirming I'd committed no traffic offenses. (needed when you export a vehicle). I did a u-turn over the central reservation of a dual carriageway and drove the wrong way down a one way street to get to this office. All this under the watchful eye of at least 10 coppers who didn't even raise an eyebrow, let alone give me a ticket! 'welcome to egypt!'

it's good to hear that computers are keeping you amused!

(my fancy new one is giving me fits - ed. Grant)

more news coming soon.

cheers chris

A thorough wrist slapping is called for as I haven't been in touch for a long time... a combination of no internet access (it is illegal in Syria!), not being in the mood (stressed or relaxed) or whatever else.

A sign in Syria, near Crac des Chevaliers: And what an adventure...

If you do find the time to respond, I'd really appreciate any messages from the real world. My last few weeks have in places merged from the sublime to the ridiculous.

'You are welcome'. Everybody says it; on meeting, on departing, when they can't think of anything else to say, always!!!! It may, or may not, be a little irritating after a while! Possibly leading to 'anger', but more of that later too...

I composed 'global8' while in Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula, while relaxing from the exploits of guiding the trusty Beemer over crap roads, gravel, dirt and even sand.

I've met wonderful Syrians, seen enough 'rubble' to last me a lifetime (and there's more to come in Egypt!), ridden a fair bit of piste (intentionally and accidentially), done about 10 klicks of deep sand (wow!?), been robbed of all my camera equipment, did my pilgrimage (sic) to Jerusalem (everybody else reconned the were on one, so why not me?).

After a rather unpleasant dose of food poisoning in Cappadocia, Turkey, I headed towards Syria. Eastern Turkey definitely requires another visit... top people, great roads (except the slippy tarmac of course) and awe inspiring views.

Compared to what I'd heard, the border formalities getting into Syria were very slick. I got my first 'You are Welcome' from the matey boy who let me out of the Syrian border compound.

A couple of things strike you when you first set foot in Syria. The friendliness of the people and that the whole country is a cult centre. I have never seen so many pictures ranging in size from 2 x 3 cm to 20 x 30 metres of the same two blokes... one is President Assad and the other, his (dead?) son, who looks remarkably similar to Ringo Starr.

I believe there is a link between a country having the status of 'International Pariah' and population being warm and helpful.. I've heard similar accounts of other travellers' experiences in Libya and Iran, as those that I had in Syria.

The Souk (market) in Allepo was something else. Melting pot is definitely the word(s). The meat market was an education in animal biology and also enough detailed to make me a vegetarian.

During my travels in the middle East, I've seen quite a few women veiled in black from head to toe, without even a slit to see through. I was wondering what their passport photos might look like. Probably all rather similar!

My Syrian map of Syria was also different. There is a whole chunk of Turkey around Antakya that according to the map, is part of Syria, a 2km long dam does not exist, whole towns don't exist and of course there is a country called 'Occupied Palestine'.

Things to buy in the souk

From Allepo, I headed east through a dust storm and then south to the most mystical of abandoned desert cities 'Rushafeh'. While camping out, I played with my GPS. Normally (in the UK) I would get 3 or 4 satelites giving me a signal for a cross reference. I had all 12 channels (i.e. 12 satelites) reading loud and clear. Possibly something to do with being 200 or so klicks from the Iraqi border. Saddam, you are being watched!

The ride further south involved 100 km of piste, asking bedouins directions en route. In one place I stopped, the most stunning woman came before my eyes. The deepest of emerald eyes and sharp, but soft features. It was as if she were blind, the way she 'looked' at me. She either had desires for me, or more likely was bemused this dirty, unshaven westener on a filthy bike, who was trying to communicate with her husband!

Throughout Syrian, my French metro pass alowed me to pretend I was a student and get in everywhere for 30 cents rather than 6 bucks. In Palmyra, I met a friendly couple, Tom from Limerick on a GS and Kerstin from NZ on an XT heading to New Zealand. Tom gave me a big hand changing both my tyres. We needed to put his 200+ kg Beemer on its centre stand, on my rim, to break the bead of the back tyre! The first thing I did upon my arrival in Damascus was to buy a compressor to pump up the tryes. The bike now sports 2 shiny, happy Bridgestone knobblies, on which I can't ride faster than 100 kmh on tarmac as above this there is absolutely no traction!

Palmyra, Roman ruins

Near Crac des Chevaliers, I spotted a road sign: "London to Cape Town Adventure Road' written in English and Arabic. Was this an omen of what was to follow?

Heading south on the motorway to Damascus it started to rain a little. This developed into hail stones which took great pleasure in bouncing off my crash helmet.Complete chaos followed. Cars stuck, driving this way and that, there was water up to my cylinder pots in places 4 to 6 foot waves of a muddy torrent in the central reservation.
The bike did not let me down and I ended up going the wrong way up the motorway and a service road to a truck stop where I stayed the night. Early the next morning, there were a few puddles next to the road, but nothing to really hint at the previous evening's events!

In Damascus, I didn't do a great deal, except eat ice cream and pizza and do a full service on the bike. I also got a great Roman (Turkish) bath and introduced road rage to Syria, care of a woman who was hell bent on running me and the bike into the parked cars on the side of the road. She learnt a few words of English and had a wing mirror less for her troubles.

The border crossing from Syria to Jordan on the motorway was a pain. The Jordanian customs did their best to be very unhelpful. They also insisted on stamping my Carnet de Passage even though it is not required for Jordan.
It's a shame the can't read French or English, otherwise the words 'Not valid in Somalia, Libya, Myannmar, Iraq and Jordan' stamped all over it, might have given me a few problems!

I then left the bike for 4 days in Amman and travelled with a pleasant Aussie named Adam to Jerusalem. There were kids everywhere, all barely out of school, all carrying guns. Big guns. All it would take would be one chappie or chappess to have a bad day and you'd have a massacre! You could feel the tension in the air. There were lots of miserable Arabs and Jews around. It occured to us that we could not recall many wars started in the name of Hinduism or Buddhism.

We visited all the usual sights, but I found Mea She'arim and Yad Vashem the most thought provoking. The former is a suburb where the ultra orthodox Jews live (it looks like Warsaw cira before 1942) and the latter is the Holocaust Memorial.

Upon my return to Jordan I had all my camera gear, Jack Kirouak's 'On the Road' (with 20 pages left to read!)
and some other stuff stolen. To say I was unimpressed is an understatement.

I am firmly of the opinion, that if some bloke wearing a black mask, a stripey shirt and carrying a bag marked 'swag' climbed in through the police station window, the Jordanian coppers wouldn't bat an eye lide. No procedures for it...

Trying to get a police report involved the biggest wild goose chase with a mad / deranged police captain. Backwards, forwards, this Directorate, that Directorate (incl. the D of Residancy (sic) and Border, D of Home Affairs and probably the D of Funny Walks too). So many people said there was 'no procedure', 'no possibility', 'not in their juristiction', blah, blah , blah...

I expressed my anger in surprisingly (for me) measured tones and the captain immediately insisted he was more angry than me.... It was pure vintage Monty Python. At one point I he gave me his service revolver (without the bullets, mind!) to play around with. At the end he asked me whether I'm 'happy' or not!

Some time later, I did meet a couple of crazy (in a very pleasant way!) Bulgarian penal-cyclists trying to get to Cape Town on US$400! One is a film maker and I did an interview. I'm sure that the Bridgestine tyre sales figures will shoot up in and around Sofia in the near furture. I also hear that my Sudanese visa application had finally be refused with no reasons given.

On the way down the Kings Highway, I finally met Charlie and Siobhan en route to India via the Middle East.
We had been communicating via email since England. A great night of chatting and beers was had in Karak, despite the naffness of the town. I had some small adventures with a petrol pump attendant making sure that what I was getting was in fact benzin and not diesel.

Petra was 'spectacular'. These people must have been totally 'Groessenwahnsinnig'. Absolutely mind blowing stuff.
South from Petra I was stoned (the rock variety). A British cyclist even had the pleasure of rocks being chucked at him 5 times in one day alone! All I can say is 'You are
welcome'.

In Wadi Rum I rode with Albert and Uli, and Austian couple on an Indian Enfield Bullet with Sidecar into the desert and spent a great night sleeping under the stars. the sunrise stunned me with wonderful reds, oranges and greys blending together into a psychedelic haze. I didn't even have to get out of my sleeping bag.

Aqaba was a dump and I had to unsubtley express my views of him and his country to the customs git who refused to stamp my Carnet de Passage (if you get it stamped on the way in, you must get it done on the way out...). This did however encourage him to do his job and I made the ferry to Neweiba in Sinai with 5 minutes to spare.

Let's see what fun Egypt has in store...

A Note from the front:

I'm having lots of adventures involving Egytian bureaucracy, fried starter motors and generally annoying...